


Seconds

by catty_the_spy



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Infidelity, Memory Loss, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-08
Updated: 2011-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an accident on an away mission, Spock forgets his relationship with Jim and thinks he’s still dating Nyota.  Nyota…isn’t sure how she feels about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seconds

  
She’s terrified when she gets the call – Spock’s been injured, brain damage. Kirk has the same fear she has, only he has one hand pressed to the swell of his stomach, and he brings her along when he heads for Sickbay.

“He’ll be fine,” he says. “Bones’ll take good care of him.”

She’s not sure who he’s reassuring – her? himself? the baby? – but he doesn’t slow down and he doesn’t go back to the bridge.

They wait. One of the nurses pushes Kirk into a chair and brings them both water. He’s smart enough not to say anything about stress being bad for the baby, knowing it would have the opposite effect. She refuses the chair she’s offered. Leans on the patch of wall next to Kirk’s chair and waits.

It’s hours and at least one shift change before they’re allowed to see Spock – hours until he’s awake and responding satisfactorily. He greets them when they walk in. “Captain; Nyota.” And then he reaches for her hand.

She’s so surprised that she doesn’t react until his fingers make contact, and then she jerks back. “What are you doing?”

His eyebrows draw together in a way that shows he's confused. Kirk looks torn between stricken and furious, and the Doctor McCoy is just plain angry.

Kirk reaches out to touch him and gets told he’s being inappropriate, and now she’s certain something’s wrong. Spock is all about public displays of affection. He and Kirk are always touching, always flirting.

“Did I do something?”

“Such a level of familiarity is not appropriate between us, as I am in a relationship with Nyota.”

She’s already shaking her head. She’s never been anyone’s other woman, and she doesn’t plan to be. “Spock we haven’t…”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” McCoy interrupts. “Before you woke up here, what’s the last thing that happened to you?”

“I was trapped in a rockslide on the planet Maltraxa and received a concussion.”

McCoy starts swearing, loudly, pulling out his scanners again. “That was three years ago, Spock.”

 

 

 

McCoy lets Spock out of the infirmary three days later, because other than the memory loss he’s fit for duty. She feels bad; she hasn’t really gone to see him since that first day. She’d spent her off-duty time with Scotty and Chekov, drinking scotch, vodka, and cassava beer like water. She’s not sure what Kirk’s been up to, but from the way he looks away when Spock steps onto the bridge, she doesn’t think he went by much either.

They make it halfway through the shift before Spock places a hand on her shoulder, leaning over her to look at her console. Kirk makes a choked noise; she can feel the eyes of everyone on the bridge looking straight at her.

She gently moves his hand and asks him to step back. She can tell by the set of his shoulders he’s puzzled, but she doesn’t watch him too closely, afraid to give the wrong impression. Instead she stares resolutely at her station, flushed, with a knot like lead in her stomach.

 

 

She hears whispers everywhere. Everyone wonders when she’ll make her move, take advantage of the opportunity presented to her. Spock is everywhere. Always trying to touch her, kiss her with his lips and his fingers, and she doesn’t know what to tell him. No, that’s a lie. She doesn’t know _how_ to tell him. She doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to resist the temptation.

“What do you think?” she asks Scotty when they get together for drinks.

“I think you’re the bravest lass I’ve met,” he says. “You’ll do the right thing.”

She smiles a little. “I wish I had that kind of faith in me.”

“You don’t need it this time” he says, and pulls her into a hug. “Sometimes you think too much. Forget about Spock, forget about Jim. Think about you.”

So she thinks.

She thinks about the day she broke up with Spock – when she confronted him about the way he acted around Jim, when she’d realized the extent of Spock’s feeling for him and chose to leave rather than be pushed aside. Now the slate’s been wiped clean, and Spock’s feelings for Jim are gone, but it isn’t real.

She can’t just pick up where she left off and pretend that nothing happened in-between. Hell, one look at Kirk would destroy that fantasy in an instant. Like it or not, it had been three years, and if she was honest with herself, her feelings for Spock had cooled. She loved him, she’d always love him, but the spark had gone out.

If it had been one year instead of three, she’d have done it in a heartbeat and regretted it later. It’s good that this happened when she had enough perspective to think it through.

 

Spock comes to her again in the mess. She’s sitting alone, picking at her lunch and pretending she can’t hear the gossip. He sits across from her, looks disappointed when she pulls away from his touch.

“Have we fought?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

“Why do you not wish for me to touch you? Are you not satisfied with our…?”

“We’re not dating Spock.”

There. She’s said it. His mouth closes and he pulls his hands off the table, probably folding them in his lap.

“We separated three years ago,” she says, in Vulcan so the people staring can’t hear. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Kirk enter the room with Sulu and Pavel. She’s not sure how much Vulcan he understands, but she guesses it doesn’t matter.

“Your emotions for the captain came between us.”

“I feel nothing for him.”

“You married him, Spock. You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t love him.”

“Whatever feelings there may have been between myself and the captain no longer exist,” Spock says.

“Regardless, the possibility of a relationship between us has passed.” She picks up her tray and heads towards the captain’s table, leaving Spock staring down at the table.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Kirk says when she sits down.

She shrugs. “I’m not that heartless.”

It’s half the truth.

 

 

Eventually there’s an accident and Spock slips into a healing trance. He wakes up with his memories intact, doesn’t try to take her hand when he wakes up in sickbay.

She hears through the grapevine that his relationship with Kirk is rocky, but she does her best to stay out of it. She loves Spock, but the thing between him and Kirk is none of her business.

She’s sitting by herself in the mess again when Spock sits across from her, hands kept to himself.

“You had the opportunity to rekindle our relationship, and you did not.”

She takes a bite of Talaxian squid and doesn’t say anything.

“What was your reasoning?”

She chews slowly. Scotty’s loudly repeating a story from his last shore leave; she’s surprised she can hear Spock over the roars of laughter coming from that corner.

“I’m better than that,” she says, finally. “If I’m going to enter into a relationship, I want to do it honestly.” She smiles a little, watches Scotty gesture wildly with his glass. “Why go for someone else’s man when I can get one of my own?”

Scotty toasts her from across the room and winks.  



End file.
